It was always a lie by the capitalists to pawn off accountability for their insatiable greed driven decision to continue to terraform our only planet to be hostile towards human life for short term profit.
No amount of peasants separating cans and bottles or using cloth diapers would have changed the temperature of today, that was just a way to shift blame from the perpetrator with the bully pulpit to powerless individuals like us.
Should we recycle and consume a lot less? Of course, but never forget, that empty, purpose sapping, depression/anxiety causing consumer lifestyle isn’t simply a choice we get to make, it is pushed on us all day every day at every level both through culture and through mass media the oligarchs fully own and through scholastic indoctrination through policy manipulation as the oligarchs own our politicians. We are raised from the cradle to conflate consumption with meaning. We are taught as children that a thriving consumer economy helps everyone when it really only helps a tiny sliver of the population at everyone else’s expense.
The capitalists, not the self-hating peasant capitalism sycophants, the people that hold significant capital, will continue to blame their victims, even when they have to retreat to the luxury bunker compounds they’ve been building in places like new Zealand to protect themselves exclusively from the damage they’ve knowingly inflicted on the human race.
And watch, their descendants will emerge a generation or 2 later, fully believing they were the ones who were wronged, expecting to lead the remnants of humanity once again. We’ll be dumb enough to let the sociopath’s progeny do it, too. I’ve yet to see my species collectively declare that enough’s fucking enough when the capital hoarders fuck us all over.
No amount of peasants separating cans and bottles or using cloth diapers would have changed the temperature of today, that was just a way to shift blame from the perpetrator with the bully pulpit to powerless individuals like us.
The idea of the powerless consumer is a lie the consumer class tells itself to feel better about its impending, largely self-inflicted, doom. Individually, consumers are certainly less to blame for climate change than billionaires, but they are neither powerless nor blameless.
Individual action is every bit as meaningless as voting in elections, or participating in any other large scale social movement. By repeating to ourselves the comforting lie that my own contribution to the problem is both negligible and inevitable, we play right into the hands of the billionaires.
Responsibility for the climate disaster does not divide cleanly into perpetrators and victims. Many, many people fall into both groups, or will eventually. The climate disaster has already claimed many victims, but the global consumer class is not among them, yet. But their time will come.
It was always a lie by the capitalists to pawn off accountability for their insatiable greed driven decision to continue to terraform our only planet to be hostile towards human life for short term profit.
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220504-why-the-wrong-people-are-blamed-for-climate-change
https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/jul/10/100-fossil-fuel-companies-investors-responsible-71-global-emissions-cdp-study-climate-change
No amount of peasants separating cans and bottles or using cloth diapers would have changed the temperature of today, that was just a way to shift blame from the perpetrator with the bully pulpit to powerless individuals like us.
Should we recycle and consume a lot less? Of course, but never forget, that empty, purpose sapping, depression/anxiety causing consumer lifestyle isn’t simply a choice we get to make, it is pushed on us all day every day at every level both through culture and through mass media the oligarchs fully own and through scholastic indoctrination through policy manipulation as the oligarchs own our politicians. We are raised from the cradle to conflate consumption with meaning. We are taught as children that a thriving consumer economy helps everyone when it really only helps a tiny sliver of the population at everyone else’s expense.
The capitalists, not the self-hating peasant capitalism sycophants, the people that hold significant capital, will continue to blame their victims, even when they have to retreat to the luxury bunker compounds they’ve been building in places like new Zealand to protect themselves exclusively from the damage they’ve knowingly inflicted on the human race.
https://www.businessinsider.com/photos-inside-luxury-bunkers-ultra-rich-prepare-for-doomsday-2022-9#tech-billionaires-are-building-luxury-doomsday-bunkers-according-to-a-tell-all-book-by-douglas-rushkoff-1
And watch, their descendants will emerge a generation or 2 later, fully believing they were the ones who were wronged, expecting to lead the remnants of humanity once again. We’ll be dumb enough to let the sociopath’s progeny do it, too. I’ve yet to see my species collectively declare that enough’s fucking enough when the capital hoarders fuck us all over.
The idea of the powerless consumer is a lie the consumer class tells itself to feel better about its impending, largely self-inflicted, doom. Individually, consumers are certainly less to blame for climate change than billionaires, but they are neither powerless nor blameless.
Individual action is every bit as meaningless as voting in elections, or participating in any other large scale social movement. By repeating to ourselves the comforting lie that my own contribution to the problem is both negligible and inevitable, we play right into the hands of the billionaires.
Responsibility for the climate disaster does not divide cleanly into perpetrators and victims. Many, many people fall into both groups, or will eventually. The climate disaster has already claimed many victims, but the global consumer class is not among them, yet. But their time will come.